ABSTRACT

Academic and practitioner studies have found that television consumption is highest among American audiences of diverse races and ethnicities. The validity of ethnic-audience ratings measurement in the past has been questionable, predicating diminished multicultural-audience valuation. One result has been less spending in the ethnic broadcast-media landscape, which is hampered by media fragmentation. Using an analysis of Horowitz Research data, a nationally representative dataset that measures multicultural cable viewership, the authors examined the relationship between television viewership and multiculturalism, mediated by programmatic and media-fragmentation influences and covaried by demographics influences.